


in the wake of devastation

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith/Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Loss, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Blood and Gore, Moving On, Not Canon Compliant, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 07, Requited Love, SHEITH - Freeform, Serious Injuries, Sheith Kink Meme, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Team as Family, except requited too late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-09-16 02:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16945092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Fill for Sheith Kink Meme.The sky is blue and clear above the rolling dunes of the desert.Ragged breathing punctuates the quiet, drowns out the soft whisper of a breeze sweeping the topmost layer of sand through the air.Atlas is silent in the distance.The witch’s cloak is in tatters, the desert sand already greedily laying claim to the remnants.And Keith is dying in Shiro’s arms.How Shiro loses Keith, and a team tries to move forward.---He clasps Keith’s hand tighter, and they both ignore Keith’s weakening grip.Keith’s smile is copper red and bright as the sun. “You came home.”





	1. blue skies over me

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [voltron_sheith_kink_meme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/voltron_sheith_kink_meme) collection. 



> Trigger warnings: blood, mild gore, death, grief, mourning
> 
>  
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Keith dies. How he does is up to you, but he takes his last breath in Shiro's arms, telling him about how much he loves him and how he's changed his life.  
> Shiro takes it like the disaster he is and blames himself for not being able to save Keith and begs the Black Lion to have saved Keith, even though the Lion couldn't have done it.
> 
> Bonus 1: Keith's dying confession was the first one where Keith was absolutely honest about his less-than-platonic feelings.  
> Bonus 2: Shiro had been pining for years and hates himself for not realising before that Keith shared his feelings.  
> Bonus 3: The team's reaction to their Red Paladin's death, leaving a big hole in all of them, and reacting to Shiro's own grief and being there for him.

The sky is blue and clear above the rolling dunes of the desert.

Ragged breathing punctuates the quiet, drowns out the soft whisper of a breeze sweeping the topmost layer of sand through the air.

Atlas is silent in the distance.

The witch’s cloak is in tatters, the desert sand already greedily laying claim to the remnants.

And Keith is dying in Shiro’s arms.

_(there’s so much blood)_

Shiro’s left hand clamps down over what remains of Keith’s chest, trying to staunch bleeding with what passes for a shirt that had been strewn carelessly in Black’s cargo hold.

All the sound has left Shiro’s ears except for the pounding of his heartbeat. Keith’s eyes are locked on his, deep purple and beautiful and fearful.

_Shiro. It’s gonna be okay._

He can’t look down, won’t look down at the mess of his body. He doesn’t want to remember this.

Keith’s eyes go unfocused and loll slightly into his head.

“Keith!”

He won’t look away, but he can push down slightly, feel the sharp edges of broken ribs with shaking hands just under the thin layer of cotton. Keith sucks in a sharp, wet breath with what would be a scream if he had enough strength left in him. The sound is almost enough to drop the floor out from under Shiro, but Keith’s eyes meet his gaze blearily, and the relief leaves him lightheaded and trembling.

He’ll make it. He has to.

“Voltron, come in. Does anyone copy?” What feels like hours trickles past him. Static crackles.

Silence, just like there has been for the past five contacts. Silence, in the desert where Atlas waited balanced on the precipice of tension as they lost communications with Voltron, until Keith and Kosmo exploded into being at the foot of Atlas with Haggar squalling for their blood.

Gritting his teeth, Shiro closes his eyes, forces past his own exhaustion. There’s no guarantee this will work.

He tries to steady his breathing, pictures his own quintessence flowing through his veins, stemming from his chest, running through his human arm into Keith’s own weakening presence in his peripheries.

“Shiro.” Keith’s whisper is no less sharp. “ _Shiro.”_

For a second he doesn’t feel anything, except for the faintest ebb in his fingertips. Then, an outpour, and he gasps. The sudden loss of energy is dizzying, almost nauseating, and he shudders.

Keith is a deepening black hole on the fringes of his senses, and there’s a sickening realization that he could pour _everything_ in and still, still, it wouldn’t be enough.

Keith’s chest expands under his hand, a hacking cough tearing out of his throat. “Shiro!”

With surprising strength, Keith’s hand snaps up to grab his left wrist, pulling it from him. “Shiro, stop – “

“Let me do this, Keith!”

“No!” Keith barks out, surprising both of them, but he swallows dryly and continues. “Shiro, you _know._ ”

“It doesn’t matter – “

“You matter!” Suddenly Keith looks like he’s reeling, eyes screwing shut and a harsh inhale quaking his frame, and it’s all Shiro can do to scramble for him as his head goes limp and falls back limply. _Fuck, Keith, I can’t not do something._

He must have said it out loud, because Keith utters a short laugh before muttering, “This isn’t your fault.”

 They fall silent, unsure how to continue before a dry heave rolls through Keith’s body.

“Shiro.” Sudden lucidity flashes through Keith’s eyes, cutting through the clouded miasma of pain distorting his features. “I need to tell you something.”

“You can tell me later.” Shiro unclenches his jaw for a poor attempt at a smile. Keith shakes his head, ironclad will flashing as he meets Shiro’s gaze.

“No. I need to say this now.” Keith breathes in, a shallow, wheezing rattle, but he’s as focused as he ever is in the pilot’s seat. “I’ve loved all of you. So much. I never thought I would have a family. I never thought… that I would find what I wanted in my life.”

It’s impossible to look away from Keith, their eyes locked, hardly blinking.

“But Takashi, please don’t hate me.” Shiro’s eyes widen, because Keith rarely calls him by his given name (only bursting upright from his nightmares in the confines of the Black Lion, hand reaching out for someone who won’t reach back). “I know I called you my brother, but I didn’t know what else to say.”

“You saved me, Takashi.” Keith reaches up towards Shiro’s face, reverent despite the trembling in his fingers. “You showed up and reminded me what it meant to _matter_. But brother is wrong.”

He stops, panting, but earnest and still clear-eyed.

“When they told me what happened during the Kerberos mission, I knew.”

His next words rent Shiro to the bone.

“I love you, Takashi. I think I always have.”

He’s knocked breathless, a tight, years-long coiled ball of yearning unraveling in his chest.

_Keith, under the stars_

_Keith, warm against his back on a hoverbike_

_Keith, laughing across from him in a diner_

_Keith, asleep in his bed after studying, hair mussed and drooling on his pillow_

_Keith, waiting at the edge of the tarmac as he walks away_

_Keith, anxiously sitting at the edge of the bed in the shack_

_Keith, breathing against his back in the training simulator_

_Keith, in the Red Lion squalling for Zarkon’s blood_

_Keith, limp against him, Marmora suit torn at the shoulder_

_Keith, in the astral plane_

_Keith, cradling him close in this strange new body_

_Keith, plummeting to Earth_

_Keith_

_Keith._

Shiro curses, hot tears running down his face.

“Takashi?” There’s a wavering note of fear threaded through Keith’s voice, and his breath hitches.

This is not fair.

“Shiro? Shiro, please answer me.”

Not now.

Not _now._

“Keith,” he begins, and Keith flinches like he’s been struck. He swallows, mouth dry, pulls Keith closer to him so he can press his lips against Keith’s.

(there’s so much blood)

Keith makes a startled noise, half-pained, half-surprised, but he draws in a trembling breath through the corners of his mouth and kisses him back, hard and desperate and _fulfilled_.

It feels like the beginning of the end.

“Keith, I love you,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead against Keith’s. They’re so close he can’t quite focus on Keith’s eyes, but he can hear the hitch in Keith’s breath, see how Keith’s twilight eyes widen. “I love you, too, and I need you to hang on for me. Please.”

Keith grips Shiro’s hand, laces their fingers together and draws another shaky breath.

“I need you to know,” Shiro croaks out, “I need you to know I how much I love you. I need you to know _how long_. I need you to know I wanted to come home to you, because you loved me when I couldn’t.” He clasps Keith’s hand tighter, and they both ignore Keith’s weakening grip.

Keith’s smile is copper red and bright as the sun. “You came home.”

“You saved me.”

Static crackles in Shiro’s ear. _“Shiro, do you copy? Shiro! Keith, where the fuck are you, you better be alive after that stunt you fucking pulled – “_

“I love you, Takashi,” Keith says breathlessly, and something starts screaming in despair in Shiro’s gut. “I’ve loved you since you flew your hoverbike over a cliff. I’ve loved you since you found me. I loved you before I knew I could love someone else again.”

(there’s too much blood)

“Don’t be sad, Takashi.” His smile is crooked, serene like Shiro’s never seen it before. “I love you. Always will.”

It leaves Keith in a rush of breath, sweeps warm across Shiro’s cheek like the flame of his very being.

“Keith, I – “ _love you, I’ve always loved you, I always wanted to love you_ fades on his lips because Keith is _not breathing._

Empty violet eyes stare back at him, expression locked in a faint smile.

_“Atlas, please copy. Someone, anyone – “_

Peaceful. He looks peaceful.

_No_ spills soundlessly from his lips, _no no no no not now not_ now as he pulls Keith tight and flush and close and warm into his arms _the way he never will be again._

“Keith,” finally leaves his lips, all broken and juddering the way he didn’t know a single syllable could sound. “Keith. _Keith._ ”

The scream in his gut leaves him for the winds of the desert as he curls around Keith _._

_no no no you can’t leave me I need you_

He’s not sure how long he’s there (too long) before Kosmo bursts back into the fabric of his reality. A delicate, but strong hand settles on his shoulder, before he turns his head to face them, vision blurred from shock and tears.

Something leaps up in his chest because the figure is tall and slender and battled-honed and oh, so very like Keith –

Then he blinks, and his vision clears to find Krolia with devastation across her face.

Krolia’s expression shutters closed _so very familiarly_ when she finally realizes he’s staring, and it rocks him to his core to see these echoes of Keith in his mother.

Surely she knows something he does not.

“Krolia.” His voice is unsteady, caught in a stranglehold in his own throat. “Krolia, please. _Please you have to help him please –_ ”

The barest of flinches runs through her as she leans down, trails a hand gracefully over violet eyes half-mast to the unmoving chest with a yawning maw of red and bone. Gracelessly, her knees go out from under her and she sweeps Keith into her arms, keening.

The weight of Keith leaving his hold leaves him bereft and unanchored, and the numbness hits him like a avalanche. All at once, he’s scooting backwards with nausea roiling in his gut. This can’t be real. This can’t.

He clutches at the soil for purchase, and finds none – the pressure of the ground is there but his fingers are tingling, as though his very reality is slipping from him.

He slams back abruptly against warm metal, sharp right angles clashing against his armor, and he spins wildly about, searching for a reprieve.

Dull, lifeless yellow eyes stare back at him from the face of the Black Lion.

He grips her muzzle like a lifeline, wordless pleas spilling from his lips. He reaches for what little remains of the thread that ties them, begs whispers _screams_ for her to save Keith, somehow, please, he’ll do anything at all if she would just _listen to me you saved me but you won’t save_ him how could you _how could you not do something your paladin needs you he needs you I need you_ I need him

He gasps for breath as he sinks under, pulling as deep as he can, hoping for the dim flicker of her eyes, to be transported to the astral plane with Keith startled but whole and hale beside him in an endless field of stars.

Nothing happens. Cold rushes through him despite the heat of the desert sun.

He pounds his fists against her rented jaw, again and again and again.

Krolia is standing next to him with tears streaming down her face, her son cradled in her arms like an altar offering to the gods as she kneels beside Black.

“I need him, Black, please, I love him, god please _can’t you do something?_ ”

The litany falls on deaf ears, and Black never stirs, a crumpled mess as silent as her paladin in the safety of his mother’s arms.

This is how he loses Keith on a sunny day.

\---

He finds himself in Keith’s room five days after a too-big funeral with a too-small coffin, staring sightlessly at a far wall.

The room is hardly personal; barely any trace of Keith had ever graced any physical residence he’d taken.

_“You know, the Garrison isn’t against decoration entirely.” Shiro eyes the bare walls of Keith’s room._

_Keith’s face twitches into a half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve known some people who are.”_

_It’s a quick flash of anger that starts in Shiro’s chest at that, and he has to resist an urge to slam a first into the wall. Instead he inhales slowly, and gestures at the empty spot on Keith’s bed next to him._

_Keith looks at him, bewildered. “Are you asking if you can sit?” Every word, handpicked. Careful. Wary._

_“Yes. I get the feeling most people don’t ask you things.” Keith stills, like Shiro’s hit too close to be comfortable, but he pats the spot on the bed and shifts over a bit more._

_Shiro sits, feels Keith tense next to him, fingers clutching the sheets._

_“This isn’t going away, Keith. I’m not going away. I promise.”_

His own words echo bitter and hollow in his head, and he rolls over, as though he can avoid facing his own memories.

Instead his gaze falls on a red jacket slung casually over the back of a chair.

His vision blurs.

All of a sudden he’s standing, holding it with shaking hands.

_“Shiro?” Their feet dangle over the edge of the cliff into empty space. The stars are bright over the desert, cut only by the dark silhouettes of sharp planes and ridges of the earth. Keith is perched birdlike, so far forward he might leap into the sky and take flight, and Shiro’s heart clenches at the thought._

_“What’s up, buddy?”_

_“What do you think you’ll find out there?”_

_“I don’t know. Maybe there are whole worlds out there we don’t know anything about.” The thrill thrums from Shiro’s chest, clean to his fingers and scalp. “That’s why I wanted to do this mission. Sure, maybe Kerberos itself doesn’t have much, but who knows where we could go years from now if we succeed?”_

_Keith’s smile is lopsided and wistful as he pulls his jacket sleeves up in a futile attempt to stop it from falling to his fingertips around him. “Sounds like a sci-fi cartoon waiting to happen.”_

_“Only if I get kidnapped by aliens.”_

_He goes quiet suddenly, still and rigid, and Shiro’s laughter fades in a wash of concern._

_“Keith?”_

_Keith turns to lock eyes with him, and the intensity he’s greeted with bowls him over._

_“I wish I were flying with you. But I can’t, so stay safe.”_

_The corner of Shiro’s mouth pulls into a sad half-grin. “I will. You’ll be here when I get back?”_

_Keith blinks slowly, surprise darting across his face before he smiles at him, star-bright and brilliant._

_“I will.”_

He presses his face to Keith’s jacket, tears threatening to spill.

Keith is a fallen redwood in the earth of Shiro’s very being, and the mangled roots of grief run deep.

_“I love you, Takashi.”_

He buries his face into Keith’s jacket and cries.

_I love you, too._

\---

Atlas is an uneasy hum in his ears when he bolts awake from a reverie of Keith’s fingers splayed against his chest.

_angry_

He’s out of bed and dressed before his mind catches up to him, walking aimlessly through the quiet halls.

_sad_

_kitchen_

Not yet fully articulate, but the few words Atlas pushes to him are accompanied by a wave of empathy. She’s still young, still learning, but eager and loving.

He finds Hunk single-mindedly slamming a rope of dough against the counter at three in the morning.

“Hunk.” A thud, and flour wafts into the air past the silhouette of Hunk’s shoulder.

“ _Hunk_.” Another thunderclap against the counter.

A sickening, ebbing wave washes over Shiro, and all at once he’s caught between wanting to protect Hunk from this reality and fleeing far from Atlas, until only the stars can hear him mourn.

God, this is so hard. He’s stifled in teammates and sympathy and condolences _and somehow he is still drowning alone._

Even sinking, Shiro knows he’s not the only one who’s lost Keith. He can’t leave Hunk like this, no matter how much he wants to crumple to the ground.

Shiro’s bleeding heart speaks before he’s ready to. “Do you want to talk?”

“No.” Hunk’s voice is brittle and sharp. “No, I really don’t, Shiro. I don’t.”

_Bang._ “I don’t want to talk about this.”

_Bang_. “I don’t know how to talk about this.”

_Bang._ “And I can’t talk to you about this.”

_Bang_.

Unexpectedly, heat flares in Shiro’s chest, crashes hard against the nausea still spinning in his gut.

He wishes Atlas hadn’t woken him, and it takes a slow inhale to stop from lashing back out at her. She feels it regardless.

Dimly, he can feel her draw back in quiet apology, leaving him alone with Hunk.

“I just wanted you to know I’m still here,” Shiro breathes out, but he’s cresting his own sorrow a million miles away. He rubs his chest absentmindedly and inhales slowly, as though he can feel the hollowness running underneath his fingers with every breath he takes.

This is more fight than he has left in him right now, and Hunk deserves more than he has to give.

Not for the first time, Keith, bowed in grief and bathed in starlight against the controls of the Black Lion in the wake of his own death ghosts through his mind. _Shiro, where are you? I can’t do this alone._

_But I can’t do this without you, Keith._

After infiltrating a Galra scout ship, they’d combed through the intel the Galra had accumulated on Voltron over the years, hungry to know which of their capabilities had been logged, and which could still be exploited as an advantage.

But they’d found more.

_The Black Lion has been sighted in three different star systems._

This is the entry that haunts Shiro.

Keith had bolted from the room before anyone had even finished reading the entry.

Shiro hadn’t gone after him.

They’ve been to ten more galaxies since the fracturing of the Galran Empire, but he will never see Keith again.

He’s so tired. Everything reminds him of Keith but _no one wants to talk about him and I can’t do this either he said he couldn’t do it but he did_ he did and I don’t know how to do this without him.

It doesn’t hit him that he’s spoken aloud until Hunk is a blurring figure in front of him, flour-dusted and breathing hitched.

“I’m sorry,” Hunk says in a small voice. “I don’t think I know how to do this right either.”

“Hunk?” Shiro wipes his face with the back of his hand, finds grief and rage quivering in the tired lines of Hunk’s face as he does the same, only to be met with a fresh wave of tears that he quickly presses his hand against, as though he can stem the flow.

“I’m so angry, Shiro,” Hunk whispers past his forearm, pressed tight against his eyes as though it’s the only thing keeping his very foundations together, the other gripped so tight around Shiro’s forearm that his left hand is going numb. “I’m so mad at him.”

Shiro’s blood starts pounding in his ears and his hands are shaking and for the first time in his life, he thinks he wants to strangle Hunk.

But it’s far worse that he finds the suppressed fury inside of himself agreeing.

“I’m so fucking mad at him and I know the world’s not fair and life isn’t fair and we don’t get happy endings but he always has to run in and do it _alone_ and I thought _he fucking learned by now, Shiro_.”

“It wasn’t his fault, Hunk,” Shiro snaps, even as the treacherous voice goes _it was it was this was his choice it was_. “He didn’t choose this.”

“Clearly, because he’s not _fucking here anymore._ ”

There’s the barest tremor in Hunk’s voice that says he knows he’s gone too far even in the face of his own righteous fury, but Shiro’s patience is in tatters on the ground and suddenly Hunk is against the counter with Shiro’s hands white-knuckled on his shoulders.

“Say what you mean, Hunk.” The snarl leaves Shiro’s throat unexpectedly, brings unbidden to mind another snarl ( _just let go, Keith, you don’t have to keep fighting_ ) and a flash of terrified purple eyes before bile rises in his throat, Keith replaced by Hunk’s wide brown eyes and a momentary fear.

“He could have chosen us,” Hunk says despite himself, and his voice rises to a near shout. “We didn’t have to fight that day. We could have waited. We would have had a better plan - ”

“We would have lost,” Shiro breathes, slivers of calm before the storm.

“He would have _lived._ ”

“At what expense, Hunk?”

“He couldn’t have wanted this for us!”

 “You’re a Paladin of Voltron, Hunk, what we want isn’t always what is right!”

“I know, Shiro!” Hunk’s fist slams into the counter behind him with a bang. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t tell myself every fucking night it’s not his fault? You think I don’t know I’m not supposed to be angry at anyone other than this piece of shit hand we got dealt where somehow the universe expected a bunch of teenagers to save it and we do everything right and I know we won and we get parades and honors and statues but it doesn’t matter that we won _when_ _we still fucking lost!”_

The kitchen is ringing with Hunk’s anguish, before they’re sinking to the floor, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders and tears running down their faces.

“I’m sorry, Shiro.” Hunk’s whisper is a confessional, encased in their arms and hidden from the world. His face is lit blue from the light of Shiro’s right arm. “I’m sorry I let him down, and I’m sorry I let you down, and I know how much he meant to you and he meant so much to us and I’m so so mad that he figured out how to take care of us but we really didn’t know how to take care of him.” He sags against Shiro. “What kind of a sick excuse is, ‘Shiro will know how to handle Keith?’ But we used it. I know I did. So many, many times.”

“I should have done more, and not just in the middle of a fight, you know? Like we had years to get to know each other, and… I’m so angry I didn’t know him, and it’s not fair that you have to deal with this. All of this. Us. Me. I know you’re hurting, Shiro, but I don’t know what to do when – how am I supposed to help when I didn’t know all the little things that made Keith _Keith?_ ”

Hunk is hiccupping now, breathing shaky and wet as he stumbles over the words again.

 “I – I don’t know what his favorite food is, Shiro. Does he like sweets? Does he like sandwiches? Did he ever eat anything without rushing? Was I a bad friend for not knowing that? I know what everyone else likes, but I thought… maybe Keith would tell me in time? But now he’s not here and I should have asked, should have fucking asked – ”

“He loves milkshakes,” Shiro breathes, and something tightens in his chest when Hunk’s eyes focus on him. “He doesn’t like sweets too much, but he loves milkshakes.”

He says nothing, intent, listening, and it bids Shiro the courage he needed.

“There was a diner outside of town. His foster placements were never really too keen on giving him much of – well, anything really. Adam thought I was just intent on taking in strays, but he was actually the one who found out Keith had never had a milkshake before.”

For a second the combined loss of them both sweeps over him, but Hunk holds him steady, keeps him brave even when he wants nothing more than to howl to the sky for the man he once loved and the one he still does.

“Adam told me one night that my wayward cadet had no idea what a milkshake was and didn’t understand why anyone would want to drink one, and ‘by the way, there’s a minimum weight requirement for fighter pilot that the tiny pain in the ass needs to meet.’”

Hunk’s laughter booms out, deep and resounding and startling in the quiet.

“So I take him to the diner and man, the look he gives me when they bring out the milkshakes covered in whipped cream and sprinkles and chocolate syrup…”

It hurts, talking about Keith so casually, like he’s just in the next room over and he’s going to glare at Shiro for ever bringing it up. But Hunk is laughing and present and drinking in every word and the vice grip on his heart eases, ever so slightly.

Atlas hums.

No one says a word when the Commander of the Atlas and the Yellow Paladin of Voltron are found asleep against each other at the foot of a kitchen counter in the morning, sticky, empty milkshake glasses shoved carelessly out of the way.

\---

(Days later, he sees a flash of red and a head of messy, dark hair dart around a corner of a hallway, and his heart comes unfettered.

“Keith,” he says before he can stop himself, reaching out with his breath caught in his throat.

The doe-eyed boy turns, eyes wide and brown and distinctly, distinctly not purple as Shiro freezes.

Hunk wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him back towards the kitchen.)


	2. they'll tell you i don't care anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro, Allura, and Pidge, on regrets and the courage to move forward.
> 
> \---
> 
> “I’ve said I love you more times to him now than I ever did when he was alive.” His back is turned to Allura as he stares up and out at into space. “How did he do this? How did he manage to go on when I can’t even – I still wake up expecting to see him, Allura. I still expect to find him on the simulation deck or flying or just – here – ”
> 
> \---
> 
> Sleepily blinking at the harsh light intruding into her Batcave, Pidge narrows eyes at him. “Are you okay?”
> 
> “Yeah. I think. Mostly. Hard to gauge.” Pidge raises an eyebrow at him, before yawning.
> 
> “Your shirt’s on inside-out.”
> 
> “Shit.”

“We need a new Paladin.”

The words have barely left Allura’s mouth before Lance slams his hands against the table and shoots upright, fire lashing in his eyes as he looks at Allura.

“You can’t be serious,” he says quietly, and somehow it’s more damning than if he had shouted. “Allura, please tell me this is a sick joke.”

“The universe will always need Voltron, Lance,” Allura snaps, and the tension is thicker than ever in the air as the two Paladins face each other across the table. Everyone else in the room looks as though they want to make themselves scarce; Iverson is stoic, but his eyes are haunted, and Matt looks about to speak before thinking better of it.

“We can take care of diplomatic visits with the Atlas and the Lions as they are now, Allura. It’s too soon.”

“The Black Lion is as much a symbol of Voltron as any other Lion is, Lance. It was the Black Lion’s awakening that even gave us the hope of restoring the universe to peace!”

“It can wait,” Lance growls out.

“No, the universe cannot wait, no matter who we lose – “

“That’s your problem, isn’t it, Allura? You always just want to cover up your feelings by strategizing and moving forward! It hasn’t even been three weeks. Did you even tell Shiro before you brought this up?”

“We need a leader!”

“Keith was our friend!”

“And he knew the universe came first when we lost Shiro, Lance, by taking the role of the Black Paladin!”

“No, he didn’t! He spent _weeks_ looking for Shiro, Allura, and you haven’t even given us that much time to mourn – ”

“That’s enough. I’m right here, you know.” Somehow, Shiro’s voice cuts through the quiet. He keeps breathing, keeps both his own flashbacks and the memories that aren’t his at bay.

Allura starts as though struck, and a heavy silence settles over the conference room.

_Keith, leaving for the Blade of Marmora_

_I should have stopped him._

_Not you,_ a now familiar voice cuts in. _Wasn’t you._

Atlas. There’s no time to strike a conversation with her though.

Rising from his chair, Hunk moves to stand behind Shiro, settling a warm comforting hand onto Shiro’s left shoulder before fixing Lance with an intent glare. “Lance, I don’t like this any more than you do. I don’t think any of us do. But it’s not right pinning this on Allura, even if your feelings are valid about this. She’s right. Voltron is needed, even if Voltron…” Hunk’s voice wavers, but he finds his confidence again, digs in deep to it. “Even if it means a Voltron without Keith.”

“And Allura,” Hunk turns pointedly, effectively cutting off Lance’s retort. “I think I know what you meant, but there’s a better way to say that, you know? We shouldn’t be arguing with each other over Keith, he would have been so mad at us. You should apologize to Lance, and both of you to Shiro, because Keith deserves better from us.”

Red blossoms across Allura’s cheeks, shame schooling her anger into something more unreadable as Hunk rambles heedlessly forward in the awkward wake of his words.

“Also, guys, I think it’s fair to say Keith would have done that eyebrow thing where he starts getting annoyed and then he does that leader voice where he’s all ‘what are you guys doing lazing around, you can do this without me, now sound off and get in formation’.” It’s a horribly pitched impression, but it’s enough for Pidge to burst into a giggle that’s quickly cut off, mortified as she looks back at Shiro –

Who is suddenly laughing fit to burst despite himself, because he can see _exactly_ that expression on Keith’s face in his mind, and that’s when it hits him again that he’ll only ever see that face in his memories now.

It’s sobering, and cuts his fit of hysterics so short even Lance is eyeing him with concern now.

He presses his head against his hands before addressing the room. “I am no longer part of Voltron.” He shoots Pidge a glance before she can protest. “But as for my own opinion, I understand Allura’s point, and I don’t disagree with it. This is a point that needs to be addressed. And I think, now more than ever, the universe needs Voltron as a symbol of stability. As long as there is injustice in this universe, Voltron has a place. I apologize, Paladins,” he pauses, “my friends, the universe still needs you. And because it does, I believe we will need to visit finding a new Black Paladin.”

“Shiro, can’t it be you?” Lance looks like he’s grasping for anything that won’t turn his world even further upside down, even as he and Allura are face to face.

“No. I can’t feel my connection with the Black Lion anymore. She chose Keith in full. Paladins, what is your discourse then?”

“We need someone.” Pidge’s voice is strong, despite the way her hands are shaking before she presses them flat against the table in front of her. “We need a new Paladin.”

“Hunk?”

“No one can replace Keith.” He scrubs the back of one hand across his eyes. “But I don’t think he would have wanted us at a standstill. This would have been way more attention than he wanted anyways.”

“Princess? Anything to add?”

“No, Commander.”

He hesitates, eyeing the MFE pilots and the rest of the Earth counsel. “Voltron concerns the universe, not just Earth. You all are a separate entity from the crew of the Atlas and the Coalition. I think this is your call and your call alone, but I don’t know who amongst you will speak for all.”

“I was Keith’s second-in-command,” Lance begins, low and dangerous. “So I think that falls on me. And I say no, we’re not looking for another Black Paladin. Not yet.”

“Lance,” Pidge hisses. “It’s not that simple. People need us.”

“And look at us! We need time! Just because it’s easy for you to move on, Allura – “

“That’s not fair, Lance.”

Lance turns to him with betrayal etched into his features, and Shiro almost wants to throw up, he’s so tired. So, so tired.

“I will speak on behalf of Voltron,” Allura says, her voice ringing out clear and strong as she stares unblinking at Lance. “And based on what I have heard, I believe we elect to begin the search for a new Black Paladin.”

Tears threaten the at the edges of his vision, but his voice stays steady and strong. “Alright. Please consider who would be a worthy candidate and inform the Paladins at the next meeting. Dismissed.”

Lance bolts from the room, and Allura reaches out as though she could pull him back before her expression falls. Pidge gives her a comforting hug, before dashing out the door after him.

“Princess.”

She whirls around to face him, distress evident in the lines of her face. “Shiro, I apologize. I should have been more sensitive.”

He smiles, strained, and waves her off as the others begin to stream out through the doors. “Do you want to talk?”

“I believe I should be asking you that, Shiro.” Her tone is sharp, but well-meaning, and Shiro can see how haggard she is under the façade of decisiveness. She softens. “You look exhausted.”

“I am,” he says before he can stop himself, and grimaces. “But the universe needs us.”

He sounds like a hollow echo of himself, and weariness churns anew. Fatigue feels like it’s literally running through his veins, tamping him down every second. He runs a hand across his face.

Allura tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and smiles sadly. “I think the universe can afford us a little bit of time right now.”

The observatory is mercifully empty when they arrive, skies purple-blue watercolor clouds spattered with stars against a deep, unfathomable darkness.

He could almost believe Keith was still out there, roaming the stars. Before he even knows it, words are spilling from his mouth.

“I’ve said I love you more times to him now than I ever did when he was alive.” His back is turned to Allura as he stares up and out at into space. “How did he do this? How did he manage to go on when I can’t even – I still wake up expecting to see him, Allura. I still expect to find him on the simulation deck or flying or just – _here –_ ”

“For just a moment, at the beginning of every day, before you wake long enough to realize he’s not there anymore?”

He’s stunned into silence, before he gives himself a mental shake. Allura shakes her head before he can apologize.

“My father once told me that we never say ‘I love you’ enough.” Allura’s voice is quiet, as her footsteps draw closer and closer until she’s standing next to him. He looks at her, finally, eyes bright with tears and starlight. Wordlessly, she offers her arm. “I didn’t believe him until you all were in front of me.”

He grasps it and grips it tight, appreciating the ease of standing shoulder to shoulder with her.

“I have to admit, I am surprised you are alright with the idea of this.” She crooks a bitter smile. “I expected you to fight tooth and nail, like Keith did.”

His smile is wan. “I thought so too.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because the universe needs Voltron, and I know you’re not replacing Keith.” His mouth is a thin, tight line. “It’s hard to think that when there really isn’t anyone like him.”

She looks at him, infuriatingly knowing. “And?”

He hesitates, and looks away.

“I think part of me blames Black for losing Keith.”

Almost, _almost_ , he can hear the distant rumbling keen of a lion – or maybe it’s the cry of his very soul, waiting for an answer.

“I know, Princess,” and his voice is hollow and distant to his own ears. “I know she wasn’t the one who killed Keith. I know this war isn’t her fault. But I know what she _can_ do. And I don’t understand why she would do it for one of her Paladins and not the other.” He looks back at Allura, feeling frayed and raw.

“Did I do this to him?” he whispers, weekslong panic unfolding in his chest. “Did Black accept him because I asked, and not because she wanted him? Is this why she didn’t save him? Allura, did I – ”

“No.” Allura’s voice is sharp suddenly, and she’s suddenly clasping his hands with enough force to crack his knuckles as he winces. “Shiro, do you think so lowly of Keith?”

“I would never,” he breathes out.

“But you do so now,” she says, eyes narrowing as her grip tightens even further, so tight Shiro can feel his hands within her quivering with her exertion. “You disrespect that Black saw in him his own worth, regardless of your desires, regardless of whether she carried you in her spirit. She didn’t have to choose him.”

“But then why – “ His sentence is choked off, and he bows his head. Her face is shadowed by starlight, and suddenly she looks like the millennia she slept has finally caught up to her spirit.

Her hands loosen around his, gentle and comforting.

“I don’t know why, Shiro. I don’t know why the Lions did not save my father and his fellow Paladins. I don’t know why Black did not stop Zarkon, close to his heart as she was. But I don’t blame her for saving you. Perhaps she didn’t know, or perhaps she knew too much.”

She looks at him, careful with her words now. “To this day, I don’t know why she allowed a pilot who looked like you but had his own soul to be her Paladin. I can only trust that he too had a heart that was worthy of her, a heart not yours but honorable all the same.”

He closes his eyes briefly, long enough to picture Keith’s back turned to him as he walks away in the hangar of the Castleship.

Long enough to wonder if Keith had loved him – him, in all his forms – too much to stay.

“But Shiro,” her hand comes up under his chin, brings him up so she meets his watery gaze. “You did not do this.”

“I hurt him, Allura,” he says, voice plaintive. “I hurt him so much.”

“He was hurting before he met you.” She searches his face, willing him to understand. “Shiro, you gave him so much love.”

“Not enough.”

“Nothing is ever enough for us. But that’s not for you to decide.” She reaches up to brush his forelock out of his face. “He always chose you. Even when you were gone, he chose you.”

“I should have been honest.” She shakes her head. Her lips are pressed together wisp-thin, curled downwards at the corners with sorrow.

“I think I should have been less. I was honest with Keith when I meant to hurt him,” he feels more than sees her fists clench as she speaks, “but not when I simply appreciated him as a friend. And I don’t know that I’ll ever get the chance to do that, Shiro, but I can’t let what he’s done go to waste.”

“I don’t know how to make Lance see that. I don’t know any other way than moving forward. I know it’s wrong. It feels wrong. But what else am I supposed to do when nothing feels right?”

Shiro inhales, before breathing out slowly through his mouth.

“We keep moving,” he says, half to Allura, half to himself. “We keep moving because we can’t stay still, but you change what you do so you don’t regret twice.”

“I can’t change anything now, Allura.” He looks at her, and they are children in warriors’ bodies wishing _I’m sorry_ was enough. “I don’t regret anything we’ve shared, but I regret that we could have.” He inhales sharply. “We could have had so much time.”

She looks back at him fiercely, and he’s suddenly reminded of Keith standing tall and proud amidst a wave of Galra on the battlefield with his bayard in hand, a sight that’ll live on in legends as the boy who wanted to fly fades to mortal memory.

“He loved you, and it was enough for him.” Conviction, like the surety that the sun will rise, that the seasons will come and go.

He’ll carry that boy to his own deathbed.

“He was always enough for me.” He meets her eyes, unblinking and steadfast, and suddenly he feels alive again for the first time in days. “I love him, Princess. I always will.”

\---

(It’s bittersweet when he finds Allura and Lance speaking in low tones, head to head, shoulder to shoulder, hands held loosely but intimately between them and all animosity gone.

He falls asleep thinking of Keith in his arms, half dreams of a house, a small pack of dogs, and a white picket fence before the ground cleaves way to nightmares and Keith is _falling_.

Allura looks up when he enters his office in the dead of night, eyes knowing as she silently hands him a paperwork for newly minted members of the Coalition.

There’s work to be done.)

\---

It dawns on him that he hasn’t seen Pidge in weeks.

She’s been in meetings, but distracted, unfocused. Things he could chalk up to any number of things; lack of time with her family, upgrading the Ares, working in concert with the Olkari on projects, _Keith –_

He swears and slams a fist into the shower tiles, feeling the shock fly up his hand. _Stop projecting, Shirogane. Not everyone is as hung up on Keith as you._

 _But they should be,_ another vindictive part of him whispers. _They should be because we lost Keith_ I lost Keith _and he mattered so, so much._

He manages to get dried off and clothed without too much mishap before he knocks on Pidge’s door.

It slides open just a crack, and he raises an eyebrow. Was this a security measure he’d built into Atlas’ doors?

“Shiro?”

Sleepily blinking at the harsh light intruding into her Batcave, Pidge narrows eyes at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I think. Mostly. Hard to gauge.” Pidge raises an eyebrow at him, before yawning.

“Your shirt’s on inside-out.”

“Shit.”

“You want to come in?”

He nods dumbly, and Pidge dips out of view for a brief second before the door slides open with a hydraulic _swoosh_. Definitely not something he’d originally intended with Atlas.

A small, distant part of him whispers something about rules and regulations and how Pidge is so, so very much underage still and god, this would look bad if he only just cared more, but it’s hard to make sense of anything orderly when the only stable part of his world is gone.

“Sorry for waking you,” he begins, but Pidge waves him off, scowling as she rubs at her eyes.

“I wasn’t really sleeping anyways.” She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m pretty sure I’m getting more than you are.”

He shrugs, loose-limbed with deep-seated exhaustion. “Nothing I’m not used to. Besides, I’m not the one still growing.”

His face breaks into a half-smile as she huffs, before settling to the floor to tinker with what must have once been a delicate gadget, now all haphazard wires and shoddy soldering. Pidge eyes it warily, before picking up a pair of needle-nose pliers and settling down in front of Shiro to work.

It’s a peaceful quiet, and Shiro can almost forget that anything has changed at all. For a second, he’s not on Atlas, but back on the Castleship dozing with the dull green light of Pidge’s terminal as she works on improvements to the Lions in a rare moment of quiet. Even the empty cans of energy drinks and crinkled snack bags are nearly in the same piles.

Then, “Are you sure you’re okay, Shiro?”

Her hands never stop working, and he almost thinks he’s imagined her speaking.

“No,” he finally says, and leans back against her wall with a heavy sigh. “No, I’m not. Are you?”

She pauses briefly, so quick it seems deliberate.

“You know, with Matt we never had a body.” Her hands are still unerringly coordinated, her eyes never leaving the fine mess of circuitry before her. “And we never found yours.”

It’s almost clinical, the way she speaks, except there’s a raw, unfinished edge to the way she says _body_. “It made it easy to keep going, because you could always believe someone was still out there, you know? There was always the next planet, the next solar system. Always a tomorrow to keep looking.”

She gently twists a wire around another, hands steady but voice trembling. “It’s different this time. I know he’s gone, and part of me feels like it should be harder to believe. But it’s _all_ I can believe now.”

She finally sets down the object she’s tweaking, looks up at Shiro with troubled eyes. “I know he’s gone, but I don’t want him to be, Shiro. I don’t want to remember him like that, but it’s the only thing I can see and _I know he’s gone and I don’t know what to do._ ”

“Pidge.” His voice is soft, and he sits up straighter as he opens his arms silently.

She dives forward, limbs askew as she tosses the pliers aside and buries her face in his chest.

“I thought it was easier, knowing I didn’t have to deal with the denial,” she mumbles into his shirt.

Her hand catches on a tag at his side and he briefly remembers his shirt is still inside out, but it gives her purchase and makes him feel more like his age than the decades the war has burdened him with. “But it just feels like I gave up on him by accepting it. Did I?”

Heart heavy in his chest, he closes his eyes and hugs Pidge tighter.

“I don’t think so.” He pauses. “I don’t know if I’ve accepted it, and it makes me feel like I’m the one who gave up on him.”

Her head snaps up even as she sniffs, eyes puffy but disbelieving. “Shiro?”

“The what-ifs keep me up at night,” he murmurs. “What if I’d been faster? What if I’d never landed back on earth? What if I had never brought Keith to the Garrison? Would he still be alive?”

“Shiro.” Her eyes are sharp now, even as she pulls glasses smudged with tears from her face. She puts her hand on his shoulder.

“What if I’d told him sooner, Katie?” The corner of her mouth wavers dangerously on the brink of tears.

“I don’t know, Shiro,” she says, voice raw. “I’m used to knowing things, but lately I’m realizing I don’t know much. Especially about Keith.”

She takes her hand from his shoulder and places it on top of his right hand, glow obstructed by her fingers.

“But I know we were all part of Voltron once. And I know Keith wanted to form Voltron so he could make a difference.” She tries to form a shit-eating grin, but it softens out into fond humor instead. “He definitely made a difference when he flew us over that cliff.”

“I taught him that,” Shiro says offhandedly, and Pidge’s smile is equal parts elated and sad.

“It might not be the kind of love you both wanted, but I think you loved as much as you could.”

_Keith’s laughter on the desert wind, dropping away, away, as he sails over the cliff edge on a hoverbike, and a strange swooping sensation that has nothing to do with gravity rolls in his stomach._

_He catches up to Keith in a flurry of dust and sand, and watches him smile before wrapping him in a hug._

_“Knew you could do it.”_

_“Only because of you.”_

“Yeah,” Shiro’s voice is thick with emotion. “Yeah, I hope I did.”

Looking around in an effort to clear his mind, he finally notices what’s actually on Pidge’s massive wall monitor.

Pidge’s computer screen is lit up with a number incrementing even as they speak – sometimes increasing in single digits, sometimes in the hundreds.

The total number is in the millions, dull green hanging in the upper righthand corner of the wall.

Across a virtualization of a small fraction of the universe they’ve explored, the same green faintly outlines familiar galaxies in a glow, so bright here and there that they’re wreathed in white, like their first Balmera and Olkarion. Others – worlds he knows are part of the Coalition, but they’ve rarely visited, are in a fainter glow.

Even so, slowly, slowly, the glow spreads from them into adjacent star systems as the number increases. The scale is massive – the fact that any of this is visible to the naked eye is mindblowing to him.

“Pidge,” Shiro asks carefully. “What is this?”

“I – “ She pauses, abrupt and uncertain for a long, still moment, like she’s been caught vandalizing something. Then, heedlessly, she tumbles forward over her words.

“Everyone wants to build him statues and memorials and they’re great and all, but this is Keith we’re talking about here. Super cranky, serious, awkward, can-actually-doodle-worth-a-damn Keith. I don’t see him being comfortable with a fifty-meter statue of himself made out of some alloy that the locals could actually use for something else, you know?”

“So I prototyped this. I don’t know if he’d like it much better, but… the one thing I do know is that Keith wanted to make a difference. It’s what kept him anchored to us. It’s what brought him back to us. It made him our friend and our leader and I – “ Pidge hiccups, looking down at the ground quickly. “Like I said, I know he’s gone, but I needed to know he’s still out there _somehow_ , Shiro. I don’t know if I do believe in an afterlife… but there’s this thing called an immortality project, and I think this was Keith’s.”

She steps aside, gesturing at her screen. “This is everyone he’s made an impact on.”

His mouth falls open slightly, looking first from her to the screen and back again, wonder in his eyes.

Uncomfortable under his gaze, Pidge fidgets, going, “I wasn’t sure what to include and my algorithm’s possibly too restrictive and I maybe need to adjust the predictive model because I limited it to people who he’s had direct contact with, and I know I don’t have all of the data I need and god knows it was almost impossible getting where he’d been with the Blade out of Kolivan but – “

“Pidge.”

“Yeah?”

He sweeps her up in his arms, his heart threatening to spill out if he doesn’t clasp something over it.

“It’s perfect. _Thank you._ ”

Pidge relaxes, and then melts against him in a fierce hug. “I miss him, Shiro. And I’m sorry because I don’t know how you can stand it.”

“I can’t.” He laughs, bittersweet. “But I have to. We have to.”

They turn back to the screen and settle down to the floor to watch her simulation, little pinpricks of light pulsing like a heartbeat.

“Shiro?” Her voice is small, thready. He’s reminded that she’s _so young._

“Yeah, Katie?”

“I really miss him. And I don’t know if I’m ready for a new Paladin. I know we need one, and I know Allura’s right but – “ She wipes a stray tear and hugs her knees closer. “We put so much on you, and then Keith tried so hard but he left and he was gone but he was still out there and I knew it, you know, and he came back and he was so different but still so Keith and now he’s just gone, Shiro.” Even in the dark room, he can see the tear tracks down her face.

“You know,” he begins carefully. “I’ve been trying not to say what Keith would want, because I don’t know what he would or wouldn’t want. I can guess. I can guess pretty damn well. But it’s hard sometimes wondering how he would feel about a situation, and harder knowing sometimes that my best guess has a good likelihood of being wrong. I mean, I guessed he wouldn’t return my feelings – and I’ve never been more wrong in my life.” He can feel Pidge leaning against him, quiet affection and support.

“But what I loved about Keith was that you always knew where you stood with him, and Katie,” he looks at her know, wry grin across his face. “I think he’d be annoyed. But I think he’d also think this was better than a fifty-meter tall statue. He loved you, kid.”

“And he loved you.”

\---

(Pidge’s program overlays the observation deck at the push of a button the next night.

Hunk is bawling. Lance is speechless. Coran’s head is tipped so far back that his tears have yet to fall.

And Allura – Allura reaches out with hands glowing ethereal blue, wordless and instinctual to first Pidge, then Hunk, before Lance silently falls into step towards them. They hold hands, but they leave the circle open, achingly incomplete.

Far off, a lion’s roar rips through the air, before the sky goes dark and limitless and then –

The numbers Pidge had displayed are gone.

Instead, one by one, like fireflies, galaxies Voltron has visited light afire, warm and bright and colorful in the sky. Swaths of black still separate many of them, but if he squints, Shiro can see the tiny pinpricks of light already seeding life and hope into worlds great and small.

“Immortality project,” Pidge whispers. “This is how we remember him.”

Shiro watches as whole galaxies begin to glow, and swears to set all the stars alight in the sky.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic title is from linkin park's "iridescent". chapter title is from mike shinoda's "crossing a line".
> 
> and the struggle to churn something out before season 8 continues


	3. this seems mighty treacherous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > "Do you know if the Blade representatives have arrived?"
>> 
>> Absentmindedly, Lance thumbs through a document. "Not sure. Have you asked Keith?"
>> 
>> The rope of grief that's been slowly loosening its hold around his heart pulls taut sharply just as Lance's eyes widen and he swears profusely, looking up at Shiro in panic. At least three different languages pass through his lips as his datapad falls from nerveless fingers onto the floor.
> 
> Shiro and Lance, on the difficulty of accepting loss and change. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "howl" by years and years.

Shiro catches the date out of the corner of his eye as he gets up for the day, and a cold shock runs through him, turning his hands clammy.

Five weeks. It's been five weeks since Keith died.

He could have sworn it was still three weeks ago.

He has a literal lifetime to go without Keith at his side, and it's earth-shattering to consider when he's stumbled groundless through the past month. It steals the breath from his lungs, wraps tight and constricting around his chest as it threatens to bring him tumbling out of precarious orbit.

But what hits him hardest now is the horrifying casualty with which it crosses through his mind. Keith’s death is entrenched next to reality in his mind now, with no room to run even as he balks at its reared head.

He wakes up knowing this reality now, too numb to retaliate and no energy left to deny.

 _Keith is gone_ , his mind whispers constantly, like a nightmarish metronome in his head, but over the weeks it’s faded to a white noise, a constant companion.

Abruptly, it rises back to a fever pitch as he starts to contemplate that Keith being gone no longer brings him to his knees.

 _But it should,_ he thinks, and the guilt wracks him hard enough that he grips the edge of the bathroom counter to steady himself. Because Keith is gone, and this should matter for longer than an amount of time that can still be counted in days.

No, this should hurt enough for him to carry the scars of Keith’s tracks over his being for a lifetime, because this hurt is his last piece of Keith and he _needs_ to fight for it.

There’s a significance here to accepting Keith’s death that he’s not willing to confront just now.

He drags a comb through his hair, tugs at his uniform to soothe nonexistent wrinkles, and takes a deep breath as he heads out to the common room.

Fully outfitted in armor, Lance is determinedly staring at his datapad, unseeing. His leg is jittering against the couch.

"Do you know if the Blade representatives have arrived?"

Absentmindedly, Lance thumbs through a document. "Not sure. Have you asked Keith?"

The rope of grief that's been slowly loosening its hold around his heart pulls taut sharply just as Lance's eyes widen and he swears profusely, looking up at Shiro in panic. At least three different languages pass through his lips as his datapad falls from nerveless fingers onto the floor.

It hurts, but not in the way Shiro thinks it would, thinks it _should_. He’s heard Keith’s name a number of ways the past few weeks – spoken in quiet respect, hurled as a testimony; piteous and frail, the way Keith himself never was. Heard it shaped like a heartbreak come to life, from his own lips.

But not like this, everyday and easy and god, isn’t it a devastating sledgehammer that he’s forgotten what it sounds like _normal_ , and it’s a gentle gift to Shiro’s ears.

Lance doesn’t seem to think the same.

"Shiro. Fuck, Shiro, I didn't mean – fuck – _fuck –_  " Lance scrambles for the datapad, sending it skittering once, twice, before he finally grips it white-knuckled and stands back up, breathing shallow and quick evident even as he stands back up, facing away from Shiro. “ _Fuck.”_

“Lance,” Shiro says, alarm finally clearing through the haze in his mind. “Lance, it’s okay.”

Lance’s shoulders are tight with tension as he shakes his head slowly, his next inhale a sharp, staccato shudder.

“We’re a mess, aren’t we?” he finally says after a few beats of silence, low and exhausted, and Shiro’s mind ticks by the seconds with _gone gone gone_.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.” Shiro settles a hand, careful but deliberate, onto Lance’s shoulder as he chases a sense-memory of himself and Keith standing just like this on the observatory deck only weeks ago.

Lance looks at him, smiles wanly without it reaching his eyes.

“This fucking sucks, Shiro. We’re not ready for this.”

 _I’m not ready for this_ , he doesn’t say, but Shiro doesn’t need to hear it to have noticed that Lance has steadily and quietly kept the others at arms’ length as they’ve discussed potential candidates for the Black Lion’s pilot late into the night.

It’s needless effort. In the end, Black has the final call.

“Guess it’s time to see who’s the poor sucker who has to deal with me,” he says, light, even cheerful, and it smacks of a veneer so flimsily built Shiro could reach out and topple it with a finger.

Too quickly, Lance is exiting the common room, and Shiro hurries after him.

“Lance.” They’re standing in the elevator now, mere seconds from arriving in the hangar.

Lance looks at him, held together only with the knowledge that they’re about to have an audience.

“It’s nice to hear his name, actually. Keith would have appreciated it.” He ignores the way his throat tightens in favor of the simple shape of Keith’s name in his mouth, spoken without fanfare.

Lance swallows uneasily and rolls his shoulders, straightening in a way that sheds all traces of the raucous boy who’d piloted the Blue Lion away from Earth from his frame until only a Paladin is left.

The doors slide open to the sight of the Black Lion lying like a shipwreck on her side, the other Lions solemn guardians flanking her.

Unprompted, the memory of her armor under his fists in the desert floats to the forefront of his mind. Shiro inhales through gritted teeth and steels himself forward.

Coran, Pidge, Hunk, Allura, are lined up to face them as they walk over.

There’s a haunted look to each of them, like they also can’t quite bring themselves to look back at her.

The MFE pilots are a ways to the side, flanking Sam Holt and Iverson. He nods to Krolia and Kolivan once as he passes, wills himself consciously to not see Keith out of the corner of his eye when Krolia shifts her weight with her arms crossed, expression neutral.

The air is stifling.

“Paladins of Voltron,” Coran says, uncharacteristically grave, and his voice rings out in the hollowness of the hangar. “It is time.”

Allura steps forward into Black’s maw, and if Lance clenches his jaw and stiffens at his side at the sight, Shiro doesn’t say a word.

\---

Pidge is the third to exit the Lion after Hunk, fists clenched at her side. No one comments on the fact that every Paladin so far has walked out tear-streaked and shadowed in heartache.

Lance keeps his gaze focused towards the ground, but Shiro knows he’s seen Pidge in his periphery by the way he stills.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the uneasy shift of James and Rizavi, on eggshells as the possibility that one of the MFE pilots might be asked to take a turn steadily increases.

He doesn’t envy them. As much as he trusts them, there’s a surge of possessiveness he has to tamp down at the thought of one of them piloting Black, sitting where Keith once sat.

The Paladins wear their hearts on their sleeves in a way that simultaneously endears them to and alienates the people around them. It’s gone a long way towards maintaining their political independence, even in close quarters with the Earth crew.

It’s also made it evident that whoever enters their ranks will have to fight tenfold to earn that seat in the wake of Keith’s death.

There’s one Paladin left, though.

Lance is riveted in place, even as Hunk waves aimlessly behind Pidge at Black.

“Lance.” His own voice feels strangely disembodied, though gentle. “It’s your turn.”

“Shiro, I can’t.” It’s the first time he’s spoken since Allura took her first step towards Black. His voice is desperate, pleading.

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t right. None of this is right, none of this is – “ Lance’s voice cracks, but Allura takes his hand, squeezing once.

“Lance. Please.”

It’s a minute or two where Shiro thinks he might bolt, and he steps in front of Lance to face him.

“Keith told me you stood here and asked him to respect the Black Lion’s decision when I died,” he says, and it’s a credit to the growing normalcy of Keith’s absence that his voice doesn’t waver. “Give her a chance to make that decision.”

Lance looks back at Shiro with an unreadable expression as he lets his hand dangle in Allura’s hold, gravity gradually pulling it from her fingers.

“Okay,” he says, tone equally indecipherable. “But don’t be surprised when she kicks me out.”

 

 

She doesn’t.

It’s a minute or two stretched long and thin, but Black _roars_ and bursts to life suddenly to stand on all fours with eyes blazing and metal glinting in the overhead lights, and unexpectedly, a weight in Shiro’s chest lifts.

It’s final, somehow, seeing her revival. Final in a way that Keith’s funeral wasn’t for any of them, final in the way that it seeps heavy into Shiro’s bones that Keith no longer resides in this plane of existence. Black will no longer be a ghost moored in the belly of Atlas.

But five, ten minutes pass, and Lance doesn’t appear.

Allura makes as though to enter Black, but Shiro waves her back to step forward himself. He steels himself against the rising claustrophobia of reentering Black, his captivity still too close at hand to be entirely comfortable.

The glow of Black’s purple holoscreens triggers a wave of memories as he enters the cockpit, superimposing Keith in the pilot’s seat for a moment staring dully at the estimated distance to Earth.

Just as quickly, it’s gone, and it’s Lance with his forehead pressed against the console in the Black Lion, breathing harshly in a losing fight against despair. He doesn’t look up when Shiro enters.

“You know, I gave him so much shit for acting like this when you died.” Lance’s voice is laced with a bitter laugh. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was trying to think of something you would say to us.”

Shiro moves to stand next to Lance, who continues to stare down at the controls.

“I used to wonder what it was like to fly Black, but I didn’t want to find out like this.” His shoulders tense. “Is this how he felt? Fuck, I should have _known_.”

He bangs a fist into the console.

Lance looks up, wounded. “I don’t think I’ve heard anyone besides you mention him in days, unless it was about how he died.”

A little piece of Shiro breaks at that, this second loss of Keith that’s happening before their very eyes. But Lance is finally unraveling and that’s the thread Shiro needs to focus on right now.

“Sometimes,” Lance swallows. “Sometimes I walk past someone in the mess hall and they’re talking about what a hero he is, and how amazing a person he was and I’m like, dude, he’s right here, look at that mullet. And then I remember he’s not with us anymore.”

He gives Shiro an agitated glance. “How much of a dick move is it to want to stand up and scream at everyone, ‘hey, hero-boy over here couldn’t get the Voltron cheer right’? How messed up is it to want to tell everyone, ‘hey, him and I, we flew our Lions into a fucking sand dune trying to outfly each other’ just because it keeps him alive more than ‘died a hero’ does? And I know that sounds bad, really bad.”

He runs a hand through his hair, increasingly distressed. “But it’s like there’s this picture they’ve got of him and it’s just all _wrong_ , Shiro. He was my best friend and I need to remember him right but I can’t even get over the fact that he’s fucking gone.”

Lance takes his hands from the console to fold them in his lap. “And now I’m sitting here, and I don’t think I deserve to be because I can’t even talk about him without freaking out. What kind of friend am I?”

He growls suddenly, bringing his hands up to his scalp and dragging them down the back of his head with clenched fingers. “Fuck. Shiro, you don’t have to listen to this. Sorry. Shit, you’ve got so much to do and I’m sitting where Keith should be sitting and I’m just trying to figure out how the fuck I’m supposed to _get over this_ – “

“Lance.” There’s insistence boiling in Shiro’s gut, hot and sudden. “Just because Black chose you doesn’t mean that you have to get over this. Not now.” He swallows. “Maybe not ever.”

Lance is suddenly unnervingly still, and Shiro wonders if he’s let too much of himself spill for Lance to continue.

Then, “This morning, Shiro. I forgot he was gone.” It’s a heartrending, halting whisper, somehow audible against the hum of Black’s machinery. “I forgot he was gone and you said it was okay _but it’s not._ It’s not okay to you, or to him, because what kind of friend forgets their friend has died?”

“What kind of a friend am I to get over Keith’s death?” And Shiro doesn’t mean for it to come out as tired as it does, really, but he’s knocking on the door of this acceptance and terrified of whatever specter is on the other side. “Lance.”

Lance finally, finally turns to meet him, and it strikes him how they’re both teetering on the edge of a dangerous slope they’ll never come back from. His heart is aflutter in his chest.

“It’s okay that you forgot, you know,” Shiro says, and god, it stuns him how he means it more than anything when a few weeks ago he nearly sent Hunk sprawling for just mentioning Keith in anger. “Lance, you can’t go all day thinking how he’s gone. I’ve been doing that for weeks and I just – I can’t anymore. I can’t function. I can’t live.” He curls his hands into fists, looks down at the floor in defeat. “Keith would be so mad at me, but I keep thinking if I stop that I’ll forget him, Lance. That if I let go of how much it hurts he matters less somehow, to me.”

“So it’s okay, I think, if you forget sometimes. It’s okay if you’re not ready to say goodbye.” He sees the slight quiver in Lance’s shoulder, how his eyes flicker down, ashamed to meet Shiro’s. “Because I’m not, and I think I need to, but I’m afraid of what it means.”

Lance hiccups wetly and swears. “Shiro, anyone who would think Keith doesn’t matter to you needs to have a date with my bayard. Including yourself.”

A shocked laugh rings out of Shiro’s chest, freeing the albatross from his throat.

Lance looks up, earnest even through tears. “He was always worried about you not taking care of yourself. So I think it’s okay with him if you let go, just a little bit. Just enough. He never wanted to be the reason you hurt.”

“I think I just want to talk about him. All the things that drove me _nuts,_ all the ways he pissed me off, all the ways I looked up to him. He was a brother to me, Shiro.” He squares his shoulders, breathes in deep. “All of you are my family. And I’m not ready to say goodbye to him yet. But I will be, and you will be too, Shiro.”

They fall silent, quiet settling like a cloak over them.

“You know what he said to me last?”

“No,” Shiro says, and breathes through the echo of _I love you, Takashi._

“The last thing he said to me before he disappeared with Haggar was ‘take care of them, sharpshooter’,” Lance laughs out, sharp and fraught with tears. “That asshole. I didn’t need Black to do that.”

“Took a page out of my own book,” Shiro says, shaking his head, fondness blooming warm in his chest. “How many of my tricks did he pull on you guys?”

“I don’t know. You tell me,” Lance retorts, but there’s a fond smile pulling at his face now. “I’ve been dying to know what the real stories are behind all the rumors before we found the Blue Lion.”

“Later,” Shiro says, and it feels like a promise. “Later, I’ll tell you as much as I can remember. Even the ones he’d kill me for.”

“Good,” Lance says, and there’s a glint in his eyes now that seems more like Lance than he’s been all day. He spreads a hand flat against Black’s console, listening to her hum with closed eyes for a second.

“I don’t need to do better than him, Shiro.” He looks up at Shiro, desperate for a thread of understanding. “But I want to do better _by_ him. Maybe once I’ve done that, I’ll feel right saying goodbye.”

The console pulses with light, and Shiro can almost hear an approving rumble roll through Black as Lance looks slightly over his shoulder, listening. He knows a conversation with a Lion when he sees one.

When he looks back, humbled but determined, Shiro can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. He doesn’t know what’s passed, but he doesn’t need to.

Lance has Black now.

They exit the Lion, but Shiro lingers a few steps behind, looking back at Black as she settles solemnly onto her haunches.

He hesitates.

He’s not ready to really say goodbye to Keith, not just yet.

But soon.

\---

(When Shiro looks in on the fighter pilot cadet class next, Lance is surrounded by them, conspiratorially regaling them with his and Keith’s entrapment in the swimming pool.

Black flies again, and slowly, slowly, Shiro pulls the burrs of Keith's memory from her.

Lance refuses to give up the blue armor.

He does, however, surrender the red bayard, leaving it to hover in a containment field like the poltergeist of Keith’s memory that rattles Shiro awake at night.

The thing is, Red won't open for anyone.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nearly done. thank you, to all of you who have been reading, for the kudos and wonderful comments.


	4. falling apart, but it’s perfectly perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > A week passes, and Shiro does not find Red’s pilot.  
> A week passes, and Red’s particle barrier falls.  
> No one comes forward, and the security footage is scrambled beyond recognition.  
> It’s not long before rumors of the Black Paladin’s phantom, wreathed in sorrow and walking through the ship, reach his ears.  
> 

For a couple of weeks, it feels like he might get through this.

It’s normal to see Lance exiting Black with a casual wave and nod towards him. Normal to resume daily life as the Commander of Atlas, interacting with his crew again without robotic, stilted courtesies.

There’s a fervor in his soul knowing Black is flying again and it thrums true through his limbs, sparking a life he hasn’t felt in weeks.

Shiro pours himself relentlessly back into meetings, into paperwork, into negotiations both hard-nosed and amicable as though they’re still in wartime trying to scrape for a numbers advantage and not merely trying to knit together the vestiges of Zarkon and Honerva’s meddling. He’s got fuel to burn off of the high of seeing Black return to the skies, and he crams his days fuller than the hours allow.

More frequently than not Allura finds him where she left him the night before, three stacks deeper into the paperwork and sifting through digital files of countless, countless notes on how to best approach diplomatic interaction. It takes Lance to coax either of them out for air and something close to casual interaction, but Shiro continuously finds himself wandering back to the office afterwards despite himself, urgent energy driving him back towards progress he can feasibly make.

He’s dimly aware that Hunk is leaving food around his office – finger food, easily and mindlessly consumed, gone before he realizes fully that he’s eating.

About three days of this goes on before his datapad winks out midway through a draft he’s working on, deep into the night.

 _GO TO BED_ flashes across the screen in slow, deliberate type, before the screen blanks out and refuses to regenerate.

 _Pidge_.

He sets it down with a single raised eyebrow, before flicking on a light and grabbing a pen. He chews the end of it thoughtfully, before scribbling down more notes.

Partway through the page, his list of upcoming diplomatic functions turns into a list of Red’s rejections. He’s left staring dumbly at it for a second, pulse ratcheting in his ears as he realizes how many people are on it.

 _What if Red’s pilot isn’t even on this ship?_ he thinks dimly, and there’s a sinking feeling in his gut, fight-or-flight singing in his veins.

Now the lights go out, and Shiro exhales through clenched teeth. Pure spite has his right hand lighting up, illuminating the paper, and he powers through for another two hours.

He can’t fail. There is no failing here.

He has to believe that Voltron will fly again. Has to, because the alternative is to sully Keith’s legacy out of failure to protect it.

He does not think about Red, silent and daunting in his dreams even as Keith laughs low and melodious, tucked against his chest, oblivious to his own death playing out below the cliff where he and Shiro are watching the sunset.

He flies awake to panic seizing in his chest, reaching out for Keith as he flies to the ground in the distance, never to stand again. Papers flutter to the floor around him.

He has a meeting.

\---

It’s funny, that Shiro’s breaking point has absolutely nothing to do with Keith.

Instead, it’s Veronica, quietly pointing out an error in the upcoming itinerary for the Atlas crew that he’s nearly signed off on.

It’s so _small_. It’s the proposed arrival time, readjusted by a few hours to accommodate a more leisurely travel plan instead of wormholing within the same solar system at unnecessary cost to Allura’s powers.

He thanks her, crosses out the error with a single line, scribbles an addendum and initials it, but there’s heat and embarrassment flushing through him as he thanks her profusely and watches the conference room empty.

Allura catches his eye as she leaves, hesitating, but he shakes his head, smiles weakly.

It’s so small.

But panic mingles with the shame, clutching at him with cold fingers, swirling eddies freezing in his veins.

A few hours. They would have arrived at the wrong time, would have communicated incorrect information, would have possibly lost an upper hand in the negotiation. Shiro _knows_ , knows this is overreacting, but Keith’s legacy deserves his utmost care, his attention, nothing less than his best and then some, and he’s just faltered.

He thinks of Pidge’s memorial, pictures the stars winking out one by one to a never-ending darkness swallowing up Keith, the way the life left his eyes even as he looked back at Shiro.

He’s so cold.

He may have left behind a war, but the war will never leave him as long as he lives without Keith by his side.

Shiro runs.

\---

Staring up at Red, failure rings hollow in Shiro’s chest.

There’s an urgency bubbling up in his blood, venomous and all-encompassing in a way that almost strangles him. Black’s heart and soul may be airborne again, but where Black was Keith’s steadiness and utmost resolve, Red was always, _always_ Keith’s untamed heart.

To see her silent and unmoving is a dishonor to Keith’s soul, and Shiro can hardly bear to look at her, hollow of the fire and warmth in her mechanical shell.

The universe has been peaceful.

This, more than anything, spikes fear into Shiro’s very core.

It’s not a fight he’s searching for, but a peace too quiet bodes no peace at all. Voltron is fast becoming an empty legend of old, fading to fairy tales the longer Red sits dormant.

He hasn’t slept more than a few consecutive hours in days. At first, Pidge’s memorial afforded him peace, Keith’s stars bright beacons in spite of the flashes of the arena to Honerva to Sendak to the platform that all dissolve to Keith, eyes desperate and pleading, mouthing _Shiro help me_ before crumpling into sand and dust under his touch.

But Red is a silent, mocking specter every time he bursts awake.

A week passes, and Shiro does not find Red’s pilot.

A week passes, and Red’s particle barrier falls.

No one comes forward, and the security footage is scrambled beyond recognition.

It’s not long before rumors of the Black Paladin’s phantom, wreathed in sorrow and walking through the ship, reach his ears.

\---

“Impossible.” Allura angrily stabs into her food with the business end of a spoon, and Hunk jumps at the loud noise as Shiro bites back an anxious laugh. “I would know. I would know him _anywhere_ and whatever shade they say walks these halls, it is not Keith.”

“But how do we know? I mean, if it was Keith, he probably wouldn’t do anything to hurt us – unless he’s one of those really angry, vengeful spirits.” Hunk winces, puts his food down abruptly. “There’s a lot of apologizing I need to do.”

“Vengeful?” Allura’s eyes sharpen at that. “What do you mean by that?”

“Commonly held beliefs about the paranormal world on Earth include superstitions where spirits remain because of unfinished business,” Pidge says, tearing at her waffle before popping a bite into her mouth with sticky fingers. She frowns. “I think Keith had a lot to stay for, but I can’t see him dwelling on something in his last moments enough to become one of those spirits. Unless – “

Lance blanches. “Voltron.”

Shiro’s stomach drops out from under him.

“Shiro.” Allura sets down her utensils. “Please. Whatever, whoever it is, it is not Keith.”

“You don’t know that,” he says faintly. Her eyes harden.

“I don’t. But I believe that the Red Lion’s pilot is aboard the Atlas, and we need to find them before it’s too late.” Her voice drops slightly. “Something is coming.”

\---

(Another day passes, and Shiro's at his wit's end, in front of Red for the dozenth time and no closer to a solution.

Footsteps sound behind him, and he looks up through blurry eyes to a splash of orange and blue.

Coran pulls him into a hug and for first time in weeks, he lets himself _really_ cry, the broken sounds of a child who’s lost their everything escaping him in the dead of night.

"Voltron has always come through," he says in the quiet, offering his handkerchief. "Red just needs some time. As do you, my boy.")

\---

His worst fears are realized when Pidge shows up with her father behind her at the doorway to his office.

“There’s rogue factions of the Empire rallying.” Pidge straightens her glasses, brow furrowing and laptop balanced in one hand. “I’m picking up on powerful energy signatures, heading this way. We have less than a day.”

“We have Atlas.” Sam shakes his head.

“They won’t be aiming for us.”

It dawns on him. “This solar system. These are peaceful farming communities on these planets.”

“And a Balmera.” Sam’s face is grim.

“They’re defenseless.” Pidge’s brow furrows. “And we’re too far out from the Coalition. We could deploy the MFEs, but... Shiro, we need Voltron. Atlas just isn’t fast enough.”

The frantic buzzing that’s been hovering at the back of his mind _(Keith ghost Red Voltron danger)_ spreads to Shiro’s limbs. “We have to find the pilot of the Red Lion.”

“But we’ve checked every member of the Atlas crew on this ship – “ She pauses, eyes meeting Shiro’s as they both stop short, realization stifling them.

It’s like lightning surging into his veins. “Every Atlas crew member,” he breathes, before he makes for the door, narrowly dodging past Pidge.

Pidge almost dashes after him, but her father places a gentle hand on her shoulder and shakes his head.

“Let him figure this out, Katie.”

\---

It’s difficult, facing Krolia, when his last memory is her blood-soaked and carrying the weight of her world in her arms.

She doesn’t turn when he approaches, heart in his throat, almost disbelieving.

It’s easy to see now, looking at her. How she stands tall and proud, walks with the same catlike liquid grace that followed Keith, how her every stride is both easy and defiant all at once. Easy to see how anyone not actually familiar with the mother and son could mistake Krolia, sleepless and wandering the ship at night, as her son’s doppelganger.

Red is what comes as a surprise to him.

“She has lost much.” It takes a second to click that she’s referring to Red, who sits solemn and quiet, unmoving still. “Three pilots, two dead. One a father, one a son. She greets me not with pity, but respect. She meets me like an old warrior, in need of a reminder that there is light in dark times.”

She looks at him, tone still neutral and matter-of-fact. “A defender of the universe, but unable to protect those most dear to her.”

It strikes near, too near to Shiro’s heart to hear her words even as she continues, voice quieter now.

“If I could have lived two lifetimes, I would have lived one as a Blade, and one for Keith.” She stops. “Everything I did was to protect him, Shiro. I never wanted him to grow up with my sword in hand. But I was given time I never expected to have, and I am grateful that just for a brief time, I was able to share in the strength of his soul. It was more than I could have ever asked for.”

She turns, and this time it’s not Keith’s ghost that dogs her image, but the fear of losing yet another member of a family that had sacrificed _everything_ to a war they never asked for.

“There’s no reason for me to stay, Shiro.” She locks eyes with him, weary but tall in her strength.

“You still can, Krolia.” He meets her eyes, unblinking and steadfast.

She looks at him, frustratingly unreadable.

“My place is with the Blades now,” she finally says. “I can’t stay here forever, Shiro.”

“None of us will. I know that above anything else. But there’s a place here for you, and it’s not to be your son.”

“Because Voltron asks?” Her smile is wry and bitter.

“No, because there’s a place for you, here.” He takes a step forward, shoulders square. “Krolia, you have guided us, saved the universe out of love, fought beyond anything _anyone_ could have ever asked for. You deserve a chance to stay, and heal. You deserve this.” His voice breaks. “I’m not asking you to be Keith. And I’m not asking for us to stand in place of him. But you gave so much. Let us give something back to you, if we can.”

He’s never felt firmer in his conviction. “Voltron is a machine of war, but it is also a vehicle for peace. A peace that you deserve, more than anyone.”

She starts at that, looks at him with sharper eyes.

Then she walks past the Red Lion to her Galra fighter, leaving him alone in the hangar with the alarms blaring overhead.

It’s a trick of the light, Shiro tells himself, that her eyes flicker in her wake, before he hurries through the hallways of the Atlas to the bridge.

\---

Everything is in chaos.

Shiro can see the Lions tearing through the air across the various screens; Lance is still struggling with piloting Black, by the way he narrowly pulls up and away from what would be a direct hit. Hunk is Black’s shadow, trying to compensate for Lance’s open spots as a literal body shield, but Pidge and Allura can only run so much interference and Atlas is still, _still_ so frustratingly slow.

They’re losing.

Shiro’s a half-beat from recalling the Lions to Atlas, when another red alert screams to his right and he whips around wildly, heart in his throat and expecting the worst.

“The Red Lion’s left its hangar,” someone says incredulously, and Shiro only has time to catch Red barreling through the air before he realizes the small feed on Krolia’s location is devoid of any living being, metal surface of the enemy cruiser shredded with the tell-tale marks of a lion’s claws.

Hope rises in his chest, as Red soars into view on one of the screens.

He can’t hear what’s going on; the comms have cut out to the Lions suddenly, their screens gone blazing white.

Long, _long_ minutes pass, but he swears he feels the click, the shift of five souls together.

He says it under his breath, hearing a voice that isn’t his or Lance’s as five pinpoints of light streak to a single point.

_“Form Voltron.”_

\---

Later, Shiro will find out in pieces how the mindscape is littered with their memories of Keith. How it nearly shakes them apart before it binds them together, these flashes of Keith they’ve each been carrying in their respective burdens of grief.

_Keith, playfully elbowing Lance forward as Allura floats past in a breathtaking dress at a gala_

_Keith, smiling at Hunk’s back as he’s reunited with his family_

_Keith, a crooked grin on his lips as Pidge excitedly leaps onto his shoulders, pointing at the local fauna_

_Keith, dragged along after an excited Allura at an interplanetary swap meet_

He’ll hear in quiet, hushed conversation under the stars of the observatory memorial how the image of a newborn Keith cradled in Krolia’s arms, reaching up towards her face in infant laughter, flashes just as quickly to her carrying his body into the Atlas, staring unseeing towards the sky he’d called his home.

He'll hear how it tears a collective wail from the Paladins, echoing the lament of Shiro’s soul as Voltron flies for the first time since the loss of her captain. How it binds them tight and relentless to each other, breathing as one in the face of heartbreak to fly with Keith’s spirit bolstering their wings.

But this is all for later.

Right now, he’s staring at the Red Lion, hardly daring to breathe.

When Krolia's silhouette appears at the top of the ramp, Shiro's eyes are stinging hot with tears.

“I haven’t failed him,” Shiro says, and he almost stutters with the relief. “I haven’t failed him. We still have Voltron. We still – “

He breaks off, gasping through tears before he’s suddenly wrapped in her arms, wiry steel strength cording around him, the strength of her grief in her hold.

“You have never failed him,” she whispers against his hair. “This he told me, again and again, and I know it to be true every day you wake.”

He looks up, tries to ignore that he’s getting snot all over her sleek Marmora armor. She smiles, wipes a tear from his cheek. “Commander Shirogane, you have strength beyond your years.”

She turns now, to the Paladins that have gathered silently, tears still streaming and hiccupping breaths littering the air as the adrenaline from the battle starts to fade.

"We put the mission above all else in the Blade." Krolia meets them all, unbending and steadfast. "But the mission is inherently personal. We say ‘knowledge or death’ because you must believe to your core that it is worthy of your life. So we find a way. We find a way to make it worth dying for."

“Keith was my reason.” She lifts her chin, proud even in her turmoil. “And he will always, _always_ be my mission.”

She meets Shiro with a burning gaze, equal parts loss and love, before she looks at each of the Paladins in turn.

"His love for all of you was deep and true. I could not have asked for him to have a better family in my absence, and I would be so honored to take this mantle." She looks at Red, before looking back at them. "Each of you, all of you, were his. And to the end of his days he put the mission above all else." 

Pidge chokes on a sob.

“His mission is mine now. I will stay.”

\---

(In the coming days, he finds Krolia correcting Lance’s form on the simulation deck. Allura scowls at her notes, correcting them with Krolia’s more recent intel on certain rebel factions.

Pidge and Hunk find themselves another mechanic heedless of best practice for experimenting with technology, and Shiro?

Shiro starts to have a quiet shadow in the late nights, steering him away from his office.

They don’t always speak, and she doesn’t always come, for Krolia is still her own agent, and in this more than anything she is like her son.

But she is not Keith, and they don’t ask her to be, and somehow, this works.

And slowly, Shiro starts to think he might find peace as well.)

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more to go. thank you so much for still reading this.


	5. everything was worth it in the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > It’s two years later when the universe is cracked open, a rift so wide and gaping that Atlas is dwarfed.  
> And looking through it, they’re face to face with themselves.
> 
> Shiro, at the end of all things. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from michael blume's "years and years".

Weeks turn into months.

It doesn’t get easier so much as Shiro learns to work around it, the way he did when he lost his arm, the way he did when he lost himself.

The Atlas is stationed for an extended period on Olkari, where they all eagerly dive into imparting their knowledge and love to small classes of students from across various worlds, eager for a future of harmony, united in their pursuit of knowledge.

Shiro catches up to Pidge during one of her classes, as her students eagerly disperse amongst the trees with nary a backwards glance.

It’s blessedly quiet. Pidge seems to still, one with the forest and its secrets briefly.

“You okay?”

Her smile is sad when she turns back to him. “When I teach this class, I tell them that Keith said we’re all related somehow, and it changes how they think of him. It doesn’t matter how many stories I tell about him being a giant nerd or super awkward and actually really funny. They just get this look in their eyes, and it’s strange. Strange that he was so much more than we could ever say, and that no one else will ever really know. That’s scary, you know?”

He nods, words lodging in his throat. It’s hard to consider, that his memories are tailored by time, that as much as he will remember Keith, he will also lose him along the way.

She pauses, listens to the laughter and shouts amidst the forest. “We were so lucky, weren’t we?”

 “Yeah, we were.”

\---

After traveling half of the known universe, it’s a wonder that anything comes as a surprise anymore.

It’s five months later and Voltron is losing when they _roar_ in defiance and its wings go shocking Marmora violet in a burst of light.

They open in glorious panorama, hundreds of small, wickedly curved blades of quintessence unveiled in an arcing sweep of purple-hot feathers.

A deceptively graceful flutter of wings, and then the resulting flurry looks almost like a snowstorm before the rogue Sincline shade simply _dissolves_ before their eyes, cut to ashes before they can even process it.

Amidst celebration on the bridge, Shiro can hardly breathe.

He makes it to the hangar somehow to stare at Black in disbelief.

“She misses him.” Shiro stops short as he looks back at Lance. His smile is crooked and tired, his helmet cradled under one arm against his side. “Not the same way Red misses him, and not the way she misses you. But she misses him.”

There’s a sudden huff behind him, a sound preternaturally quiet from such a large entity.

Wordlessly, Shiro turns and faces her. Her head rests between her paws, bowed solemn and mournful.

 _Mine_ she seems to say, and Keith stepping into the cockpit, devastatingly young, flashes into his thoughts.

He hasn’t been this close to her in months, weary of blame but unsettled by her proximity to loss. But something in him draws him to her, draws him to put a hand on one of her titanic claws.

It’s not the same as being transported to the astral plane, but it’s a near thing. He’s thankful, unsure if he could handle being submerged in the depths of her sentience again.

His head is just above the churning waters of her bereavement. _Regret sad anger lost protect mine_ washes over him, her last memory of Keith cut short by the axe blow of Honerva’s magic before she awakens _alone alone_ alone and he inhales deeply, hand on her claw trembling.

It’s enough, for Shiro. Enough to say _I forgive, I’m sorry, I know_.

She flickers beside him, deep-space black and starlight pelt rippling as she sits beside him in his mind, muzzle to forehead. It’s striking how much he missed her steadiness.

 _Forgive yourself_ , she seems to say.

 _Someday_ , he thinks.

\---

A year passes. He remembers Keith.

He misses him.

He says goodbye many, many times.

Says goodbye on the back of a hoverbike, breaching into brisk evening air.

Says goodbye to every mention, every question, every bright-eyed cadet who eagerly pushes forward with Keith's name on their lips and his spirit in their flighted dreams.

Says goodbye when he wakes up in the morning and sees Keith's jacket, slung over the back of his chair under his.

He looks at the chair, imagines a lifetime where the jacket is exactly where it is but Keith is sleep-mussed and bare in the sheets next to him, before his last alarm chimes.

He says goodbye over, and over, and over again.

He loves him as best he can, as best this reality will allow him.

He loves tenfold as they work their way through the stars, pouring his heart into every soul, every world, everything his hands touch.

Shiro loves, for himself, and for Keith.

And he lives.

\---

It’s two years later when the universe is cracked open, a rift so wide and gaping that Atlas is dwarfed.

And looking through it, they’re face to face with themselves.

It’s like staring in a mirror, and ice creeps through Shiro’s veins. A spitting image of Voltron hovers at other-Atlas’ side.

Voltron is already singing through the air before Shiro can process that the Lions have left their hangar, the afterimage of Black’s wings searing bright across the displays. Lance’s piloting is off-kilter in a way Shiro hasn’t seen since the immediate aftermath of the war.

Voltron’s grief is still too near to their hearts.

 _“I don’t like this,”_ Lance breathes through the intercom. A pause. _“We’re being hailed – what the actual fuck – “_

He cuts out abruptly and Shiro’s anxiety skyrockets. “Voltron, report!”

No answer.

“Lance. Lance!”

Pidge’s voice, shaky and uncertain. _“Voltron, copy. We’re okay, Shiro. It’s just…”_

 _“We’ve made contact.”_ Allura’s voice, suddenly sharp, balanced precariously on a knife’s edge. _“Atlas, would you like us to patch you through?”_

His brow furrows. “Yes. Please do, Princess.”

Hunk, softer than Allura. _“Shiro. You should sit down.”_

His blood runs cold. Almost before he knows it, he’s sunk into his chair, white-knuckled grip on the armrests.

“Incoming communications from the Atlas and Voltron,” Veronica says, eyes flickering briefly to him over her shoulder before her fingers fly over her console.

Shiro’s breath hitches.

The streams from the Voltron Paladins line up on the Atlas’ screens, flanking their doppelganger’s display. Tears are running silently down Allura’s face; Pidge is paler than Shiro’s ever seen her. Hunk’s frame is _quaking_ , his head bowed down, soft sobs coming through the speakers. Krolia is stock still, the weight of a thousand wars heavy in her gaze.

Lance’s mouth is a tight, thin line, as though if he speaks something fragile will come undone.

The central display flickers, static crackling.

 _“This is Captain Kogane of Voltron,”_ comes a low rasping voice over the intercom, and the entire world seems to freeze. _“Does Voltron copy?”_

For the first time in two years, Shiro locks eyes with Keith. Keith, whose eyes are purple and bright and ferociously determined, his jaw set square and striped with a red scar.

Another screen flickers onto the display, and Shiro recognizes the stern set of his own jaw from when he’s just barely holding onto patience. _“This is Commander Takashi Shirogane of the IGF-Atlas; does the other IGF-Atlas copy?”_

 _“Man, this is weird,”_ Other-Lance whispers, heedless of the healed-over fissure in Shiro’s heart that’s been torn open. _“You think they can hear us?”_

 _“Lance, we don’t have time for this!”_ Allura.

Other-Pidge is quiet, though, her eyes roving over her screens.

Shiro sees it when her eyes widen, lips parting on a question she stops before it can be realized. He _knows_ Pidge.

He knows when he sees fear in her eyes.

 _“Voltron, copy. This is Captain McClain speaking,”_ Lance finally replies, unaware of Other-Pidge’s strife _(wait am I the Black Paladin holy shit_ goes Other-Lance).

 _“I’ve got a lot of questions,”_ Keith says (Other-Pidge mutters _same_ under her breath), _“but I don’t think we have time for them. We need to close the rift before it destroys both of our realities. I think we need to do this together.”_

He’s got one eyebrow crooked, as though the rift is a mere annoyance and not potentially reality-ending. _“Will you help us?”_

Every syllable is dripping with defiance of the situation, and it draws Shiro like a moth to a flame.

“Yes. We will.”

\---

No one brings up Keith’s absence, or presence. Shiro can see the barest hint of alarm on his doppelganger’s face, but the conversation quickly whittles to just both sets of Hunk, Pidge, and Allura as the rift gapes open just a few star systems wider.

They’re literally pulling the rift closed with brute force, and some extra Altean magic (both Pidges mention something about _pocket dimensions_ but Shiro’s long since gone past comprehension) when a soundless explosion rolls over them in waves of light, like the last vestiges of fight in a dying beast.

At first, he’s not really sure what’s happened. The bridge seems to distort, rippling waves like murky water across the field of his vision, and then –

_Keith, lacing fingers with him, bringing them up to kiss where their hands meet_

_Keith’s first “I love you, Takashi,” against the sunset of a planet with two moons low and pastel in the sky; his latest, brief but intense, in the hangar with the rift looming over them only hours ago,_

_and dozens in between_

_at the beach, careful and shy_

_after a fight, biting and nipping_

_on a Lion, firm but quick_

_before a battle; armor-clad_

_Keith, naked under him, flushed and lips parted on a gasp_

_“Marry me,” Shiro hears himself say_

_“I will,” and two wedding bands glint in the light_

He surfaces like a drowning man, gasping for air and gravity within himself.

These memories are not his.

On the screens Keith is looking back at him now, stricken with remorse. There’s cold shock written all over the silence from other-Voltron’s comms, but Shiro can’t _won’t_ look away from Keith.

 _“I left you,”_ he breathes, and it’s clear he’s struggling for words. _“I left you, didn’t I?”_

Stars, he’s _beautiful_.

“Not your fault,” Shiro croaks out. He doesn’t dare look at himself, doesn’t care to see himself shattered in the mirror again; just holds Keith’s gaze without blinking, unsure if he’ll ever see it again.

Unbelievably, the rift is collapsing in on itself. Static crackles across the feeds and Shiro just stops short of screaming out _no please don’t go_ as Keith’s display flickers black once, twice in the space of a second before coming back online.

 _“Takashi,”_ Keith breathes, and there’s _lifetimes_ in his voice. _“No matter who or where I am, alive or dead, I will_ always _love you.”_

“Keith,” Shiro says, his heart hanging on every part of his name as he drags it out a half beat longer.

There’s so much he wants to say.

But this isn’t his Keith. His is gone. _I love you_ fades as quickly as it comes to mind.

“Please. Be happy.”

The rift closes.

Silence, through the entirety of Atlas and Voltron.

A fresh, soul-quaking wave of grief grips Shiro deep, threatens to pull him under, and he _sobs_.

 

 

At least somewhere, they got it right.

 

\---

(Admiral Takashi Shirogane passes at the age of 75, surrounded by friends and found family.

One second, he’s wearily blinking up at Allura, teary but holding him with such strength still, Lance humming at the edge of his bed, Hunk with a soaked handkerchief in hand and Pidge’s smile quivering as she settles a warm wrinkled hand onto his.

The next, he’s blinking up at the sun on his back in the sand, warm and bright as the day his world fell apart.)

\---

The sky is blue and clear above the rolling dunes of the desert.

Shiro’s intake of breath is loud and sharp against the soft whistle of the breeze.

His pulse _(pulse?_ he wonders, but who is he to question his old friend death) quickens in his ears.

He sits up from the dune, squinting as a penumbra falls over him, platinum-bright as he adjusts to the light, to easy breathing that comes without pain for the first time in years.

“Takashi,” he hears, rough and musical.

Vision returns in splashes, as he slowly drops his hand from his face and looks up.

A hoverbike, long gone to scrap, is new and shocking red against the sand in the near distance.

Long, slender limbs. A narrow waist ascending to broad shoulders hugged by worn leather, strong enough to bear him from all evil. Defiance, etched into every line and angle.

A smile, devil-bright and achingly familiar, framed by a scar.

Shiro scrambles up from the sand with a cloud-burst of dust around him, and wraps Keith _warm solid his_ into his arms for the first time in eternity. He backs away, just enough to rove eyes over Keith’s face, thumbs kneading Keith’s cheeks as he tries for a scowl and winds up just looking fondly annoyed, purple eyes brimming with tears.

“Keith,” he says, just as Keith says again, “Takashi.”

“I love you,” both of them say, before lips meet, soft and chaste.

 

 

All around them, the desert bursts into full bloom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesus fuck i seriously wrote 17k+ words of keith being dead for my first voltron fic what the actual fuck
> 
> that said, i'm so humbled by everyone who's left comments. thank you all so much. honestly, this started out as a way for me to process a recent loss, but it's grown into something more than that and i'm seriously amazed by the amount of people who have left kudos or gave this a shot at reading.
> 
> see you all soon, with something a little more happy i hope.


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